Social Anxiety and Word Use: How Environments Can Influence Words

Heather C. MorganDepartment of

PsychologyDr. Adriel Boals

Department of PsychologyCollege of Arts and SciencesUniversity of North Texas

Language as a focus of interest• Pinker (2003)

▫Executive function, negotiates relationships, remembered as content

• Pennebaker (2007, Newman et al., 2008)▫Males use more preposition and articles

Socially detached form of speech▫Females use more first person singular,

function words, and social references Reflects various group processes

▫Depressed people use more first person singulars (2003)

Social Influence on Language•Communication Accommodation Theory

▫Language is used to negotiate the social distance to another person

•Social Anxiety ▫Results from one doubting themselves to be

able to create an intended impression Promotes longer silences in conversations Person takes longer to respond

Social Physique Anxiety (SPA)•Social anxiety: concern of how

others view their physical appearance (Russell, 2002)▫Presence of others reduces SPA

(Carron et al., 1999)▫Friends are a source of protection

compared to strangers (Mack et al., 2007)

▫Males have a stronger and more negative effect of SPA (Mack et al., 2007)

Gender and Stress Responses

•Anxiety produces a stress response•Tend and Befriend vs. Fight or Flight

▫Nurturing and Cooperation instead of competition (Taylor, 2006)

•Threat vs. Challenge (Ennis et al., 2001)▫Males with challenge appraisal had

significant increase in cortisol, threat appraisal resulted with no change in hormonal levels

▫Females with challenge appraisal had significant decrease in cortisol levels

Hypotheses1. General gender difference of word use

a. Females use more first person singulars and self references than males

b. Males use more prepositions and articles than females

2. There is an interaction of gender and state anxiety on language usea. Females have no change in word use as

anxiety increasesb. Males use more social references when

their state anxiety levels increase

Participants• 94 undergraduates

from the University of North Texas who received partial course credit▫Males: n = 33▫Females: n = 61

Methods

•Public speaking task •State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI;

Spielberger et al., 1970)•Demographics•Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC;

Pennebaker, 2007)

Word Use Across Genders

Word Categories Mean

Mean Percentage (SD)

t(df) d

Males Females

Articles 3.594.27

(1.55)3.19 (1.34)

t(93) = 3.58***

.75

Prepositions 9.009.77

(1.26)8.52 (2.00)

t(90.8) = 3.70**

.75

First Person Singular

10.919.85

(2.47)11.54 (2.57)

t(91) = -3.13**

.67

Self words 11.099.93

(2.46)11.77 (2.57)

t(91) = -3.40**

.73

Note. *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001

Influences of Anxiety on Use of Social Words by Gender

•Adjusted R2 = .05, p = .06•Significant predictors of social words

▫Gender: F(1, 89) = 2.21, p < .05, β = -.84

▫State anxiety is NOT β = -.01, p > .05

▫Interaction between state anxiety and gender F(1, 89) = 1.98, p < .05, β = .75

Correlations

•Corroborated past research of general gender differences of word use

•Males had moderate correlation of state anxiety levels and percentage of social word use ▫r = .48, p < .01

•Women had NO correlation of state anxiety levels and percentage of social word use▫r = .007, p > .05

State anxiety and Social Words

Males Females

Percentage of Social Words Used

Interpretations of Results

•SPA reduction▫Males, who are more impacted by this type

of anxiety, use a higher percentage of social words This reflects an increase in words expressing

group related processes Being around others alleviates SPA, perhaps

the language that males utilize is being used as a tool to reduce anxiety levels

▫Males’ word use may reflect more social comparisons

Interpretations•Differences in the stress responses between

genders is not reflected in word use•Females would be expected to have an

increase in social words as anxiety levels increase (tend and befriend)▫Lack of this relationship shows that males

utilize word use differently▫Specifically when talking about body image,

males may just compare themselves more to others than females

References• Carren, A. V., Estabrooks, P. A., Horton, H., Prapavessis, H., & Hausenblas, H. A. (1999). Reductions

in the social anxiety of women associated with group membership distraction, anonymity, security, or diffusion of evaluation. Group Dynamics, 3, 152-160.

• Ennis, M., Kelly, K. S., & Lambert, P. L. (2001). Sex differences in cortisol during anticipation of a psychological stressor: Possible support for the tend-and-befriend hypothesis. Stress and Health, 17, 253-261.

• Mack, D. E., Strong, H. A., Kowalski, K. C., and Crocker, P. R. E. (2007). Does friendship matter? An examination of social physique anxiety in adolescence. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 3, 1248-1264.

• Newman, M. L., Groom, C. J., & Handelman, L. D., and Pennebaker, J. W. (2008). Gender differences in language use: An analysis of 14,000 text samples. Discourse Processes, 45, 211-236. DOI: 10.1080/01638530802073712.

• Pennebaker, J. W., Booth, R. J. & Francis, M. E. (2007). Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count: LIWC 2007. Austin, TX: LIWC (www.liwc.net).

• Pennebaker, J.W., Mehl, M. R., & Niederhoffer, K. G. (2003). Psychological aspects of natural language use: Our words, our selves. Annual Review of Psychology, 54, 547-77. DOI: 10.1146/annurev.psych.54.101601.145041.

• Pinker, S. (2003). The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. New York, NY: Penguin Books

• Russell, W. D. (2002). Comparison of self-esteem, body dissatisfaction, and social physique anxiety across males of different exercise frequency and racial background. Journal of Sport Behavior, 25, 74-90.

• Spielberger, C. D., Gorsuch, R. L., & Luschene, R. (1970). Test manual for the state-trait anxiety inventory. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.

• Taylor, S. E. (2006). Tend and Befriend: Biobehavioral bases of affiliation under stress. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 15, 273-277.